If the Connie gets hacked it will be something a little more substantial, and I still think I'd rather have a Ural when the time comes. This just made me realize how much messing about I've done with the hack and not posted a single pic..
I may end up just starting a new thread (Ninja hack V2.0) since I've been fooling with the cargo body. But first I have to actually do it instead of talking about it..

Well, it's been an interesting year for the Ninja. The Fiberglass body is stored and waiting repiair (there's a thread floating around here on that issue), I'm on my second truck-toolbox cargo body (not that I needed another one, but I sold the first one thinking I'd never use it again....needed one about one week later ), and I even had the sidecar up for sale a couple of times over the last year with thoughts of putting it towards a Ural.

Rewind to a couple months ago, I saw all the Ural guys posting up about the DDS Cross FL ride. I thought "Wow, that many sidecars going I should join in too!" It also made me think of what an awesome opportunity this would be to see how my hack would fare on an adventure ride and find out if I really wanted a Ural as bad as I thought. Here's my rig the night before departure:

Another shot to see my attempt at ground clearance:

All was good! I had an awesome time, saw some really cool stuff, met some great guys and got to really put the rig through its paces. Here it sits after 500+ miles of pavement, sand, gravel, dirt, and more groan inducing potholes than I care to mention:

Not a single mishap, the Ninja performed better than expected (I did the entire adventure route) and got lots of attention throughout the ride. I thought my wife was kidding about the box looking like a coffin, until almost everyone on the ride kept asking me why I had a coffin on my sidecar.. (I threatened to rig it up so the lid would pop open going down the road & have the crypt keeper pop out laughing ) For what it lacked in style, it made up for it in carrying way too much crap for me to camp in comfort!

Which brings me back to where all this started. I still want a Ural (it's the look and 2wd, that's all it is), but for the riding I really enjoy the Ninja has totally succeeded in putting a smile on my face. I have plenty of power, awesome reliability, and loads of originality ("I've never seen a sidecar on a Ninja before!"). The only thing I could ask for is a little more suspension travel. There was a place called "Janes scenic route" that had me keeping it in first gear for a while to keep from pounding the rig into pieces (lots of potholes ). It has me thinking, there's plenty of guys doing the whole dirt-ninja thing for better off-road performance. Granted, most of those are 650's, but the same ideas will apply to what I have. And as much fun as I had this last weekend, I think the Ninja has earned some upgrades. I'm pretty sure for what it would cost me to get into a reliable Ural, I can make a helluva upgrade to what I have.

So, what have I learned from all this? There's Ural camps, BMW camps, Guzzi, Honda and the list goes on. Someone is always asking what the best rig is, and everyone has there own opinions as to which ones and why. Well, here's my opinion (for better or worse). Get something simple and reliable, preferably something you're familiar with. Get it rigged properly and ride the crap out of it. The most important thing I've learned? Quit worrying about what everyone else is doing/riding and enjoy what you have.

Hopefully someone enjoys this, at the rate I'm going it will be another year before I post on this again

supermotosean screwed with this post 03-17-2014 at 10:40 AM
Reason: still haven't learned how to spell...